XVII
by Riza's Cupcakes
Summary: After months apart, Riza and Roy steal a single night together to finalize plans for the Promised Day and to find peace in each other's company.


_A/N: It's been approximately 84 years since I've posted here and I'm so sorry. I'm going to start updating my profile with all the fics I've written lately. This one is from Royai Week 2016: Day 3 - Stars._

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Riza's breath turned to frost as it rose toward the vast, star-flecked sky. From where she stood at the top of a hill just out of reach of Central's night time glow, head tilted back, they seemed frozen in time and space. Funny that even a woman unable to shake her nickname of "the Hawk's Eye" struggled to reconcile their nightly journey with the seemingly-immobile canvas that hung above her. The pink-grey light of dawn would break on an entirely different sky and she would be unable to say exactly how it had shifted from here to there. Her next breath came shuddering from her aching chest, somewhere between a whimper and a sigh in a moment of quiet vulnerability that only isolation could afford her. For only a moment, the weight of the world could slough off from the shoulders she always held in such perfect posture, replaced by the hands that held her steady.

She tilted her head back a little more until she could see his starlit face and the gentle affection in those eyes that were darker and more beautiful than the midnight sky. Almost smiling, he spun her until she faced him, then cupped her chin in his hand. His lips were a welcome warmth after the biting chill of the wind that had chapped her own; his other hand found the small of her back to draw her closer to him. As she returned the embrace, he moved his lips all the more urgently against her own, and she clasped her hands together behind his back to keep herself upright as the world began to spin faster beneath her feet.

When the kiss ended, they remained with faces only centimeters apart, and the warmth in Roy's eyes as he looked down at her stirred something in her heart that nearly made her cry out in pain. How had they reached this place from the one they had started from-how could they have gone from starry-eyed children to star-crossed lovers whose lives hung in delicate balance, always orbiting around each other until precious moments like this when they finally came crashing together for the smallest of instants?

On his way to meet her, he had lain a blanket over the stiff grass near the edge of a pond as still as glass, though not yet frozen-over. They wrapped themselves in it and in each other, and moved together in a familiar harmony as the sky turned in its slow and endless waltz above them. After, they lay with legs still entwined, sharing each other's warmth as their hearts thudded along in perfect time with each other. Roy reached one trembling hand up to sweep Riza's sweat-damp bangs aside, then brushed his fingertips over her cheek. "I don't want to go back tonight," he said in a hushed and all-but-broken voice.

"If only I could ask you to stay." The words poisoned her heart as they tumbled from her mouth. The air was too cold, too sharp to breathe comfortably, but Roy still lay beside her, and he was more than willing to kiss her breath away, drawing the poison out of her with every unspoken reassurance that he was still hers alone.

He pulled back from the kiss to his forehead against hers. "Ask me anyway," he said. "We still have another hour or so."

"Do I even have to ask?" she teased, and he gave a light, throaty laugh.

"You already know what my answer would be."

They kissed again, found their rhythm again, found something that might have been peace if not for the nagging sense of duty that threatened to pull them apart, this time for good and into a thousand pieces each.

"When will I see you again?" Roy asked.

She trailed her fingers through his hair. "I don't know. It was dangerous enough for us to meet tonight. We've been so careful to avoid each other…"

"I had to see you. Passing coded notes like children-sometimes things get lost in translation." He kissed her again. "Your notes are always so _sterile_."

"I can't exactly send you flowers, Colonel."

"I'm not the one who doesn't own a vase, Lieutenant."

They both laughed softly, breathily. Riza would have given anything to have been able to send love notes Roy's way, rather than dry, coded plans and intelligence smuggled through his information network of beautiful "dates". Even though she knew who they were to him, an aching stab of jealousy overwhelmed her every time she so much as thought about them. To be allowed to spend time with him-let alone to flirt openly-was a gift she could only begin to imagine.

And so they lay entwined, naked aside from the heavy blanket wrapped around them: one more small treason atop the larger ones they spoke of as the last of their brief time together slipped past. In hushed whispers, they spoke plainly of all the things they had planned to make certain that nothing had been misunderstood, and all the while, the warmth that colored their voices filled in the love that had been lost in the translation from pen to page. All too soon, the plans were laid bare as their skin, and they had run out of excuses to stay with the threat of dawn approaching.

They helped each other dress with lingering touches and glances filled with unconcealed longing. Riza helped Roy fold the blanket and she fell into step beside him as he carried it to his car. He kissed her one last time before he opened the door. "Wait for me."

"Of course. Now go; there's already grey on the horizon. We musn't be caught outside the city like this."

He shook his head. "Think of it as practice for what's ahead. The Promised Day will be more dangerous than this."

"I'll see you then," she said. "Spring won't come quickly enough."

"It never does. With luck, we won't have to hide this for much longer." He stroked her cheek and she resisted the overwhelming urge to take his hand, to hold it where it was forever.

Instead, she simply smiled wryly. "Since when has luck ever been on our side?"

"I love you," he said, ignoring her question as though he could petulantly avoid the truth of their shared fates by refusing to speak it aloud.

"And I, you," she said. "Be careful."

"I always am." With one final look to seal the memory of her face under starlight, he got into the car and turned the ignition.

The world always moved on, waiting for no one, but she would wait for him until the stars burned out, and she knew that he would wait as long for her. As she watched Roy's car disappear into the early morning darkness, Riza was keenly aware of a single emotion rising above the chaos of love and dread and vast, vast loneliness that clamored for control of her heart: hope.


End file.
